It was during the one-day tri-series of 1981-82. Australia versus Pakistan, from memory I think it was the Adelaide Oval game. Javed Miandad, a few weeks after his legendary contretemps with Dennis Lillee, was in hot water for apparently being overhead shouting the F-word to Greg Chappell as the Australian captain was leaving the field after being dismissed.

In the days well before codes of conduct and match referees, Javed explained that he was actually greeting the successful wicket-taker, off-spinning all-rounder Ijaz Faqih.

Javed's words to Ijaz in Urdu translate into English as, "Faqih, you got him third ball!"

Back to 2008 now. This morning's Daily Telegraph reports the previously-unpublicised claim that Harbhajan Singh, rather than calling Andrew Symonds a "monkey", used a Punjabi expression that sounds very similar, but in fact translates into English as something that would sound like "Mother Faqih-er".

Frying pan, fire, Harby??